Building @unplugwithroots to help you stop doomscrolling | Previously co-founded Intown Golf Club (#205 on Inc. 5000), and gottaGolf (exited)
Atlanta
Joined August 2012
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One simple decision is saving me 3+ hours a day.
I stopped doom scrolling.
That doesn't mean I don't use my phone, I just set better boundaries.
Here’s exactly how I do it (#5 is key).
I just took 3 months off social media.
My first son was born in June, and I went cold turkey after that.
It was one of the best decisions I’ve made.
Here are 4 key takeaways 🧵:
4. I want social media to be a conscious choice.
I’m coming back because I want to create and share things.
But I don’t want posting something to turn into an hour of scrolling.
So I’m setting limits on when I open these apps...and how long I stay.
Roots blocks the apps and feeds I tell it to, on a schedule I control.
When the limit hits, I can't override it in one tap.
Phone time dropped from 4 hours to 1.
Pickups from 150 to 50.
The cortisol load drops with it.
You can't always control what's in the feed.
But you can control how much access it has to your nervous system.
If you're rethinking the negative input you absorb every day, check out Roots:
apps.apple.com/us/app/roots-…
Source: doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2515331…
Media credits:
1. Wasting Time on Social Media? Do This technori.com/2025/04/4262-th…
2. 2-Minute Neuroscience: Amygdala youtube.com/watch?v=JVvMSwsO…
An Indiana University team tracked 2,345 people to answer one question.
Can your relationships actually age your body?
Here are 6 hard truths from the study you need to learn:
The phone is the modern delivery system for it.
Algorithms find what makes you angry, anxious, or scared, then serve more. That's the engagement model.
A doomscroll session isn't a break. It's chronic activation on a feed.
This circuit isn't unique to hasslers.
Any chronic negative input fires it. News loops. Outrage feeds. Group chats running hot all day.
Your HPA axis can't tell the difference between a difficult parent and a phone full of bad signal.
The mechanism is the part nobody talks about.
Constant stress from the wrong people keeps your HPA axis activated.
More cortisol. More inflammation. Faster biological aging.
It doesn’t hit all at once.
It's a slow burn that compounds for years.
It isn't just aging.
The same study found higher depression, higher anxiety, more inflammation, and higher BMI in people with more hasslers.
Hasslers don't just speed your clock. They damage every system the clock measures.
6. Difficult spouses don't accelerate aging.
This was the surprise finding.
A hassling spouse usually also offers support, intimacy, and shared meaning. The mixed positive load buffers the negative one.
Pure-negative ties don't get that buffer.
5. Coworkers and roommates are the worst non-family hasslers.
11.3% have a hassler at work.
10.4% have one at home.
Same reason as family. You can't escape them between 9 and 5, or in your own bedroom.
Proximity without exit keeps your stress system on.
4. Family hasslers do the most damage.
Parents who hassle: 9.8%.
Children who hassle: 9.7%.
Friends only: 3.5%.
Family is structurally embedded. You can't ghost a parent or a kid. So the cortisol load stays elevated for years.
3. The effect is 13 to 17% of smoking's effect on aging.
The researchers ran that comparison directly.
A few hasslers stacked with normal lifestyle hits puts you in smoker-adjacent territory for biological age.